


cheshire cat

by EKmisao



Series: stories from the end [3]
Category: Mystic Messenger (Video Game)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon Era, F/M, Game Spoilers, Gen, Spoilers, extended ending spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-24
Updated: 2016-10-28
Packaged: 2018-08-24 10:43:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8369236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EKmisao/pseuds/EKmisao
Summary: (Ending/extended ending spoiler) The cat talks to Alice again, as he loses his way. (one-shot vignette, canon)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> \- SPOILER WARNING for the absolute end of the extended ending episodes. Apparently it's still messing with me. 
> 
> It's a lot of sadness all around, but all the same, thank you for reading.

[THE SPOILER WARNING IS REPEATED.]  
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.......................................

He's asleep again. He's finally asleep on the couch. Finally. 

It's like I took home a wild, angry cat...no, a wild, weak, angry tiger. I took home an angry tiger and brought him to a cave without a quick way out. If I get close to this tiger, he snarls, he takes out his claws, he swipes, he draws blood. And when the effort has tired him enough, he drops to sleep. 

I have the welts, the nail marks, the bruises, and a black eye, to prove all this. 

He's curled up again on the couch, his lips pale and dry. His hair is losing the white dye, and the roots are starting to reveal the true red, the same as mine. He hasn't changed clothes since we got back here, so he's in the tank top, without the spiked wristbands, without the jacket, revealing the arm that brands the mistake of his trust and mine. He's been asleep more than he's been awake, all told. He doesn't eat. He barely drinks anything. That makes him weak, makes him sleep more. 

I probably haven't been eating much, either. I can't get him out of my sight. I'm worried that any moment that I do so, he'd do something scary...or irreversible. If I sleep when he's awake, he might stab me. I'd deserve it, but I'd rather stop him instead. So I can't eat. I can't sleep. I can't leave the apartment. 

I fall back onto the floor, and lean back onto the wall. 

I can't do this anymore. 

But I have to. I have to. I cannot lose him again. I have many sins to atone, many things to make right. 

The phone rings. 

It's her. 

I grit my teeth and steel myself. I force a happy greeting. "Alice!" That is not her name, of course. 

"Hello. How are you? And what did you just call me?" she asks. 

I keep my head leaned back on the wall, my eyes closed. I want to sleep. I can sleep on the floor. I am scared to sleep. "The Cheshire Cat is smiling right now! Do you see it?" 

She chuckles. I am so glad she chuckles. I haven't lost it entirely. "I don't know where to look, Cheshire Cat." 

I sense my brother stir on the couch. I open my eyes, but he has just turned, with his back now facing me. And yet I raise myself to check anyway. He is still asleep, though. 

"Oh. He's smiling. You don't need to know where," I tell her. "He just disappeared, see." 

She chuckles again. "Okay, if you say so, Cheshire Cat." 

"Sorry I can't take you to see the March Hare," I say to her, as I settle back onto the wall. "Find someone else to take you. You'll miss the tea party." 

I fall back onto the wall. I wonder how long he'll stay asleep this time. Maybe I can catch a few winks, or a whole nap. "Oh, Alice. We miss you in Wonderland, truly. It was fun there, wasn't it? And we had a party. Well, they had a party...we missed it...I'm not making sense...But I'm the Cheshire Cat! I really don't make sense!" Damn, I can't keep this up. I'm too tired. I want to sleep and not wake up from this nightmare I deserve. 

"Seven." Her voice is gentle. "How are you?" 

I can't fool her, it seems. "Ah, well. It's okay." I keep forcing the happy voice, to make her stop worrying. "He's sleeping right now. So far, so good." 

"Are you sure?" she asks. "You sound tired." 

My eyes had shut again, but I keep talking. It's quite nice hearing a voice that's not the voices in my head. I hold my hair in my hand and pull. I force myself to calm down. I exhale. "I'm...I'm fine. He's fine. I'm fine. Really." 

"I can send you take-out food...?" she offers. "Or bring your groceries?" 

"Really, Alice, don't worry." 

Please, stop. Don't be worrying about me. I don't deserve to be worried about. I deserve to be clawed to death, strangled to death, stabbed in the chest with my chopping knife...I don't know anymore, but I deserve to die. 

"I can handle getting deliveries for the groceries. I can obviously get food delivered." I force whatever is left of what is cheerful in me. "See? The Cheshire Cat is grinning at you again..." 

"Saeyoung." 

I almost drop the phone. 

I fumble with it, manage to get it back to my ears. 

"I want to talk to Saeyoung," she says. 

I say nothing, for a long moment, but I hear her breathing at the other end of the line. 

I don't know what to say. 

"I love you," she reminds me. "Please, talk to me." 

"But I can't get you involved--"

"I already am," she says, with calm. 

"Please." I pull my hair again, I force myself to stay calm for her sake. "I'm doing this so you don't get hurt, any more than you already got hurt--" 

"Just talk to me, Saeyoung. It will be alright. Don't carry your burdens alone." 

"But it's my cross to bear. It's my sin to atone. It's my divine punishment..." 

"You don't have to bear it alone. Not anymore. Let me help you carry the load." 

"I can't. I can't make you do that..." I curl up on the tiled floor. "Not for me. I'm just the Cheshire Cat. I disappear." 

But her voice fills my ears again. "I love you. Please let me help you." 

I'm tired. 

I have nothing left. 

I can't talk anymore. 

I think the heaving sobs come out before I notice they had left me. 

"How?" I ask her. I have no other words left. 

"At least, let me talk to you," she says. "Okay? Just tell me about the day. I'll listen." 

So she listened. 

Curled up on the floor, tears pooling on the tiles, I let her listen to heaves and sobs and sniffles and muffled anguished crying. 

The words come in a rapid jumble. "He thinks I'm strong, but I'm not. He thinks I deserved to be depended on, but I'm weak, and useless, and powerless. He's still actively suicidal, and I can't do anything about it except get rid of everything that could be a blade in his hands. I'm scared. I'm scared of losing him, losing him for good, forever. I don't want to lose him. I'm scared that if I take my eyes off him, he'll disappear from me again, and he would be gone from me. But I can't do this. I can't do this anymore. I'm not good enough, or strong enough. I'd rather he kill me already. I deserve everything I get from him, every bite, every punch, every wound into me. I should not be telling you this. I deserve every terrible thing that is happening to me now. I do not deserve you. Dammit, I do not deserve you." 

She listened through all that, quietly breathing while I rambled senselessly at her. 

"Why do you love me?" I ask her again. "Why do you stay?" 

"Because I love you," she says. "I will tell you so, as long as you need me to tell you." 

"Don't," I tell her, between sobs, between sniffles. "Don't do this. I don't deserve this." 

"You do," she says. "You are stronger than you think. You are kinder than you give yourself credit for. You deserve to be loved." 

"I can't keep my eyes open anymore..." I warn her, and it is true, I have already closed them to the world around me, and the nightmare around me, just focusing on the sound of her voice, on the only thing left that keeps me here. "I'll disappear now." 

"Don't leave me, Cheshire Cat," she tells me. 

"Stay, Alice..." was the last thing I remember saying. "Stay with me." 

But I remember drifting into dreamlessness, hearing her say, "I love you. You are loved. And I will stay."


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I said one-shot, but a scene kept presenting immediately after. 
> 
> If you're on this part, then hopefully you are aware it is SPOILER. But thank you for reading. 
> 
> My Korean goes even far less than my Japanese, and my exposure was more in anime than in Kdramas. I have the most basic of knowledge of the honorifics, but I don't trust myself in their use.

[THE SPOILER WARNING IS STILL REPEATED, in case you should not be reading this yet.]  
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...........................

I woke up from a rather long sleep, tired and deep. I had no idea how much time had passed. It was hard to tell how time passed in that bunker of a basement apartment, anyway. I was used to not knowing how time passed, even as a child. I seem to have carried it over, always staying in dark rooms and places, whether by choice or not. But when I see this basement apartment, I realize that he has carried it over to his present world as well. 

I found him on the tiled floor. I found the salt of tried tears on the cheeks. I found his phone with red-and-orange casing beside him. He had a bedroom, did he not? I did not understand why he lay on the floor. 

I held his shoulder and shook him. But he did not stir. He tended to quickly move, before I even got close to him. But this time I got close enough to touch him, and he did not move. 

Something was very...not right. 

I could drop a pillow over his head, the way he was right now. I could keep it there, until I was sure he would never move again. I could get a kitchen knife. I could drive it into him, and he would not fight back. I could wrap my hands around his neck, and keep it there, until he stopped breathing. 

But...I...could not do it. 

Something deep in me called out: This is your brother. Something is wrong with him. You have to do something. You have to help him. 

I don't know what was holding me back. 

The phone gave out a cheerful melody. It was that girl. But my brother was in no state to answer. 

I took a deep breath, and took up the phone. "Um...hello?" 

I caught a gasp from the other end of the line. "...You're...you're Saeran. Right?" 

My heart started to pound. "Yes," I said. I braced myself for shouting and accusing. Which I would have deserved. 

"At least, you sound better. I'm glad," she said. "I wonder if I can talk to Saeyoung, though?" 

She did not shout. She did not snap. She was glad. About me. Oh. "I...do not know." I did not know what else to tell her. I did not know what to say, what to tell her. I looked down. "Um...um...um..." 

"Is everything alright?" she asked, and I heard all her fear. 

"He's...he's...I...um...Luciel is...I...um..." 

I have to tell her. I have to tell her. I don't know how to tell her. I don't know how to be anything but angry. I know about scared. My life was all about being scared. But I know how to be scared for me. I had run out of being scared for my brother. And yet here it is again. I am scared again. I am scared again for him. And I don't know what to do. 

"He's...not...moving." I sighed. I managed to say it. I managed to tell her something. "He's not moving." 

"What?" 

I heard the fear again. She is afraid again. Afraid of me. "Not me," I managed to say. "I swear. Not me." 

I heard her exhale some of the fear. "I am glad to know that," she said. "But what is wrong, then?" 

"I do not know." I was so used to talking only to my brain, that talking about something to someone else was hard. My brain could not process it properly, used to being so fired up with injected stuff, and now not fired up at all. I realized I was hungry, and thirsty, and maybe still tired. I could not think straight, or think at all. 

"Just tell me, Saeran," she said with the calm I saw before. "Maybe I can help?" 

"I...um...well..." I stammered. "He's...on the floor. I think...maybe fell asleep here? But now...he's not moving." 

"Okay," she said. "He's breathing, though?" 

"Yes," I told her. That much I could see, his chest heaving as he panted. 

"Does he have a fever?" she asked. 

I knew about fevers. I knew about them. That I could find out. I could. I would. I reached out and pressed a hand over his forehead. I immediately pulled back. The forehead burned. "Yes," I told her. 

I heard a groan, but not from her. 

"Alice. 'Tis Alice." 

I did not know what to do, or what to say. He muttered, just barely opening his lips. 

"Tweedledee, Tweedledum. We listen to Alice. We do. We do." 

I rolled my eyes. And I snapped at him. "If you're well enough to joke, you're well enough to get up." 

But his own eyes did not open. "Tweedledee. Tweedledum. We listen to Alice." And he fell silent. 

I grew scared again. I picked up the phone again. "Um...Alice?" 

She chuckled for a bit. "Calling me that, too, huh. You'll get used to that about him, Saeran, don't worry." 

"Okay," I said. "What...do I do?" 

She talked me through it. Bringing him to the couch, and laying him there. Loosening his clothes. Getting cold water from the kitchen. Soaking a towel with the cold water. Placing on his forehead. 

She called several more times over the next few hours, giving instructions as I told her what I saw about him. He stayed deeply asleep, sleeping through the high fever, his lips and face pale, the black eye I gave him even darker. 

It was...very strange. 

For so long, for several years, I thought he was gone from my life. When he returned to my life, all I wanted to do was to remove him permanently from it. But here I am now, placing a towel over his forehead, cooling it from the burning fever, when all I wanted to do was to either smother him with a pillow or strangle him with my hands or drive a blade through his heart. 

But the girl kept reminding me of what the deeper voice said: He is your brother. He is one with you. 

......................

He woke up, suddenly sitting up on the couch, his words stumbling all over each other. "Saeran! Are you alright? Did mom hurt you again? I'm sorry I was gone for so long..." 

"Go back to sleep," I told him with a smirk, looking up from a cup of his instant noodles. 

He looked around for a bit, confused. He stared at me, eating ramen. 

I thrust forward a bottle of water. "Alice said, drink water. When you wake up. Here." 

"What?" He rubbed his eyes. He looked down at a watch. His jaw dropped at the time. "I'm sorry, I overslept." 

"Alice also said, you have to eat," I told him. "I get you ramyeon?" 

"What is going on?" 

"Tweedledee, Tweedledum. We listen to Alice," I reminded him. "You said." 

"I did?" 

"You need rest. Alice said." 

"But...I have to check on you!" 

"Shut up and get better." My brain knew only how to be angry and how to be afraid. It thought faster and spoke faster when it spoke in wrath. "I'm going to get the ramyeon now, whether you want it or not." I grumbled as I stood to get it. 

He slowly settled back onto the couch. "Saeran." 

"Hm?" 

"You listened to her. Thank you." 

I paused. No one thanked me for anything. Ever. 

"And..." He picked off the damp towel from his lap. "You took care of me. Thank you." 

"Stop it," I told him, as I held my head. "You're messing with me again." 

He shook his head. 

I stomped off to the kitchen and got his cup noodles. 

But when I returned, I found him seated on the couch, with a grateful smile. 

The deeper voice, the voice from my heart, spoke again: He is your brother. He is one with you. 

That would always be true.


End file.
